Patidar powers Bengaluru into second straight IPL final

A dropped catch at 20 can sometimes cost a match. In Dharamshala, it cost Gujarat Titans 73 more runs, a playoff record chase, and perhaps their best shot at controlling Qualifier 1.

Rajat Patidar did not just survive that chance. He turned it into an unbeaten 93, full of clean violence and cold timing. Royal Challengers Bengaluru rode his innings to 254/5, then crushed Gujarat by 92 runs.

That result sends Bengaluru into a second straight IPL final. For a franchise that has carried heartbreak like extra luggage, this one felt unusually complete.

Patidar joins an elite captaincy list

Patidar has now done something only a small group of IPL captains have managed. He has taken his team to back-to-back finals.

That puts him alongside MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma in a serious leadership bracket. Dhoni did it repeatedly with Chennai. Rohit did it with Mumbai in 2019 and 2020.

Patidar’s route looks different. He is not the loud, cinematic captain. His authority comes from batting impact and calm decision-making.

Against Gujarat, he gave Bengaluru both. His 93 not out came with 9 sixes, and he reached his fifty in 21 balls.

That is the third-fastest playoff fifty by an IPL captain. Adam Gilchrist did it in 19 balls. Dhoni did it in 20.

The stat matters because playoffs punish hesitation. Patidar attacked exactly when Gujarat thought they had reopened the match.

Bengaluru turn playoffs into a batting show

Bengaluru’s 254/5 is now the highest total in IPL playoff history. Gujarat had held the earlier mark with 233/3 against Mumbai in 2023.

RCB also hit 38 boundaries in the match. No team had struck more in a playoff game.

The powerplay set the mood. Bengaluru reached 76/1 in the first 6 overs, among the biggest starts in playoff cricket.

Then came a wobble. Jason Holder removed Virat Kohli for 43 and Devdutt Padikkal for 30 in the same over.

That should have slowed Bengaluru. Instead, it gave Patidar the stage.

Gujarat will replay the 14th over in team meetings. Prasidh Krishna found Patidar’s top edge, but the ball fell between Jos Buttler and Kulwant Khejroliya.

Two balls later, Kagiso Rabada put down a simpler chance at deep midwicket. Patidar was on 20.

From there, he made Gujarat pay like a senior batter should. His final 73 runs came with the ease of a man seeing the ball early.

Six-hitting record tells bigger story

Patidar also became the fastest Indian to hit 200 sixes in T20 cricket. He reached the mark in 105 innings.

Abhishek Sharma held the previous Indian record, with 200 sixes in 125 innings. Patidar has shaved a full 20 innings off that.

That tells us something about modern Indian batting. Earlier, Indian middle-order players often built innings around placement and recovery.

Now, players like Patidar treat six-hitting as a core skill. Not a finishing trick. Not a luxury. A basic scoring tool.

His 9 sixes also put him second on the list for most sixes in a single IPL playoff innings. Shubman Gill sits ahead with 10.

Patidar now has 24 sixes in IPL playoff matches. Only Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni and one more batter sit above him on that list.

This is not a one-night burst anymore. Patidar has started building a playoff identity.

For Bengaluru fans, that matters. Their team has often had glamour, but not always knockout control. Here, Patidar supplied both.

Gujarat collapse after early trouble

A target of 255 asks too much from most teams. It asks even more when the chase starts with strange dismissals and scoreboard pressure.

Sai Sudharsan’s dismissal summed up Gujarat’s night. He cut Jacob Duffy for four, but his bat slipped and hit the stumps.

That made him only the second batter to be hit wicket in an IPL playoff. Kusal Mendis was the earlier one.

Rasikh then produced a rare powerplay over, a double-wicket maiden. He dismissed Nishant Sindhu and Holder without conceding a run.

In a chase this big, a quiet over is damaging. A wicket maiden is brutal. A double-wicket maiden almost ends the argument.

Gujarat never recovered rhythm after that. The asking rate kept climbing, and Bengaluru’s bowlers attacked with scoreboard freedom.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar picked up 2 wickets and moved to 26 wickets for the season. That equals Wanindu Hasaranga’s 2022 tally for Bengaluru.

Only Harshal Patel has taken more wickets for RCB in one IPL season. He claimed 32 in 2021.

Rabada shines despite Gujarat defeat

There was one bright point for Gujarat. Kagiso Rabada took his 18th powerplay wicket of the season.

That is now the most by any bowler in a single IPL season. He went past Mohammed Shami’s 17 from 2023.

It is a serious number. Powerplay wickets change matches because they attack both runs and confidence.

Yet Rabada’s dropped catch of Patidar will sting. That is sport’s cruel balance. You can own one record and still lose the defining moment.

Kulwant Khejroliya also had a painful evening. His 15th over went for 28 runs, the second-costliest over in IPL playoff history.

Only Parvinder Awana’s 33-run over for Punjab in 2014 sits above it. In a playoff, one bad over can live for years.

For Bengaluru, the night had theatre too. A young fan held up a poster for Kohli, calling himself Reyansh Kohli and promising to play for RCB one day.

That is what this franchise does. It turns cricket into memory, even before it turns into silverware.

Now Bengaluru stand one win from the title that has chased them for years. Patidar has given them numbers, nerve and belief. The final will test whether this is just another brilliant RCB surge, or finally the season when all that noise becomes something solid.